Last Vestiges
by Lamia of the Dark
Summary: AU. Two of the newly dead, an angel and a devil, meet in the human world. Can they recover the memories of their lives and solve the mystery of their deaths before the last vestiges of their humanity are erased? COMPLETE
1. The Final Tasks

**DISCLAIMER: Phoenix Wright belongs to Capcom and is being used here without permission.**

**Warnings for character death (obviously) and not naming names. (What, you'll figure out who it is by the end of the chapter...)**

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~ Last Vestiges ~

Devils born in Hell from the carnal sins of other devils have pure black wings from the moment of their birth, but devils who were once human souls start out with red wings that turn a little more black for each evil deed they do in the human world.

She had barely been dead a week and her wings were already almost completely black. One more, just one more act of evil in the human world and she would join the ranks of Hell as a being of pure darkness.

It was nighttime in the human world and she was perched on the roof of a department store, resting after her latest task. She stretched her arms over her head and surveyed the surrounding area lazily, trying to decided where would be the best location to perform her crowning act of mischief.

She spotted another black-winged figure crouching on rooftop a few blocks away. She was surprised; there shouldn't be any other devil initiates working this area and she was sure that it wasn't a full devil because she would have been able to feel his evil aura from this close. She was going to have to go over there and investigate!

Once she got closer she realized that his wings were not actually black but a dark shade of gray, and they were the feathered wings of angel, not the leathery type possessed by devils. However, the ragged figure sitting hunched in the shadow of the building's air-conditioning unit didn't look anything like an angel, if you didn't count the fact that he had wings.

She spoke out, "I thought angels were supposed to wear white robes and have halos and-"

"-and white wings?" the angel finished, sarcastically. "Then where are your horns and tail? I don't see you carrying a pitchfork, either... Only angels born from the Tree of Life in Heaven start with pure white wings. Angels who were once human souls start out with black wings and every time they do good in the human world their wings turn a little lighter. Only once they turn fully white can I truly join the host of Heaven."

"So, angels are like that, too," the devil said thoughtfully. "I was a human soul." She spread her wings, allowing him to see the flash of red at each wingtip. "I have a lot of powers already, of course, but once they turn completely black, I'll be able to command all of a devil's powers."

"How long have you been working on it?" the angel asked sullenly. "I've only been here a week and my wings are still almost completely black."

The devil frowned. "I've been here a week and I've been able to cause enough havoc to become a full devil. I only need one more..."

The angel was starting to look really depressed now. "I guess I'm just no good at this," he said. Then a thoughful look came over his face. "Hey, we both died around the same time, didn't we? And since we're both in this area... do you think maybe we knew each other during our lives?"

"You think our deaths might be connected somehow?" the devil asked. She was curious now. "My human name was-"

"Don't say your human name!" The angel snapped, cutting her off.

"Why not?" the devil asked, nonplussed.

"You'll be cursed," the angel replied grimly.

"I'm a devil, idiot!" She sighed and gave up. If he thought saying their human names would lead to him being cursed, she wasn't going to push the issue. Stubborn angel... "Fine. It's not like I actually have any memories of my human self anyway. My temporary name is Belthier. What's yours?"

"Angels don't do it that way," he replied. "I won't recieve my angel name until I become a full angel."

"Then tell me your human name."

"I can't do that!"

"You do know it, don't you?"

"They told me what my human name was, but I'm not allowed to say it."

"Or you'll be cursed," the devil said, rolling her eyes. This was ridiculous. "Well, I have to call you something..." She looked over the ragged angel again and settled on: "Scruffy."

"Don't call me like I'm a dog!" the angel snapped angrily.

"Scruffy, Scruffy, here Scruffy," the devil teased, beckoning to him with her hand.

"Stop it!" the angel snapped.

The devil suddenly became serious. "Hey, don't you want to find out what you were like as a human?"

"How do you expect us to do that?" the angel asked. He was a little confused by the sudden change in her attitude.

"We know our human names!" the devil replied enthusiastically. "We can start by going to our graves."

~ to be continued ~

**A/N: Reviews are love.**


	2. The Solemn Grave

~ Last Vestiges ~

"So that's your grave..." The devil's voice carried none of her previous enthusiasm.

"Yeah," the angel responded sadly.

There was a small group of mourners surrounding the angel's grave. There were two men dressed in black, and a girl dressed in strange purple kimono-style clothing. They were standing quietly in rough half-circle in front of the grave. One of the men appeared to be praying, while the other simply stood staring blanky. The girl was weeping openly.

As they watched, the second man broke down. He fell to his knees and pounded his fist against the headstone. "_Why won't you tell us anything?_" he shouted. His eyes filled with tears. "Why won't you tell us anything?" he said again in a whisper.

"Nick..." the girl knelt next to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Just because we can't contact his spirit doesn't mean-"

The rest of what she was saying was lost as the devil turned to the angel and shouted, "They've been trying to contact your spirit! There must be something about the way you died that hasn't been resolved yet!" After a brief thoughtful pause, she continued in a subdued tone, "But whatever they've been doing hasn't worked because your soul doesn't exist in that form anymore..."

As the devil fell silent, the second human man began to speak. "Have you tried a Ouija board?" he asked, looking down at his distraught companions.

"No," the girl replied. "Do you think we should?"

The man sighed. "At this point, anything is worth a shot." His gaze slid to a point about six feet to the left of where he was standing. His companions turned to glare spitefully in the same direction. The devil followed their line of sight and, to her surprise, found that they were looking at-

"That's... _my_ grave...!" Why were they glaring at her like that? Had she... _killed_ him? Was that the reason she went to Hell?

The crying man turned to face the angel's grave again. "Please tell us something, anything," he begged, a whispered prayer.

"Do something," the devil hissed, giving the angel a light shove.

"How?" the angel asked, confused.

"Use your powers!" the devil answered. "Manifest, or just send them a sign..."

"I don't know how to do those things," the angel replied sullenly.

"Fine, then I will!" She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that these people had known her human self and she didn't want them thinking terrible things about her. (Although, considering where she had gone when she died, they probably thought terrible things about her already.)

She concentrated her powers and in a spiral flash of magic she disappeared from the angel's side and reappeared on top of her gravestone in the form of a black cat. She meowed loudly to attract the humans' attention.

"Hey, look..." the girl said. "Do you think it's him...?"

"I... doubt it..." the crying man replied, wiping at his eyes. His answer was very tentative, as if he wasn't sure whether to believe what he was saying or not. "Come here," he called to the cat. "Here kitty. Here -" He started to say the angel's name and the cat let out a hiss and leapt to the ground. She stood on her hind legs and pawed at the name on her headstone.

The man stood and walked over to the cat. "I know. It's okay," he said, reaching down to pick her up. She hissed at him again and took a swipe at him with her paw, then darted past him to rub against the ankles of the other man who was still standing beside the angel's grave. She didn't know why, but she felt that she would rather be picked up by this person than by the man called Nick.

"Well, that pretty much proves it!" the girl said, clapping her hands together. "He always did like you more than Nick, didn't he?"

"This proves nothing, Miss Fey," the man replied, as he leaned down to scoop up the cat. "If anything, I'd say that this was-" _Franziska_ "-nothing more than a coincidence." The devil was surprised. She hadn't realized that she would be able to read minds in this form. She doubted that the angel realized it, since his powers of observation seemed as limited as his celestial powers, but this man had obviously figured out the cat's true identity (he had called her by her human name, after all, if only to himself) and had concealed that fact from his human companions...

"So," the other man said, breaking the tense silence that had fallen. "Let's get to that Ouija board and see what we can find out."

~ to be concluded ~

**A/N: Reviews are love.**


	3. The Destined Path

**A/N: A Ouija board usually has Yes and No printed on it besides the alphabet. (Some also have Maybe.) It makes it easier than having to spell out those answers.**

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~ Last Vestiges ~

"Wait, do you actually have a Ouija board?" the man called Nick asked.

"Yes," the other man replied tersely as the cat shifted into a more comfortable position in his arms. The group began to walk toward the street, where the car they had arrived in was parked.

"Why _do_ you have a Ouija board, Mr. Edgeworth?" the girl asked curiously.

The man called Edgeworth sighed. The cat got the sense that he was hesitating because it was a touchy subject. "Franziska bought it for me when were kids." The cat was startled to hear him speak her human name. So, that was the reason he had hesitated to answer. He assumed his companions would react negatively once he brought her into the conversation. They looked surprised, but neither one spoke out against her. Edgeworth continued, "I was twelve years old then, which means Franziska would only have been about five." The cat quickly did the math in her head and worked out that he was seven years older than her. Not that that bit of information gave her any real clue as to what their relationship to each other in life had been. "We had decided to try and contact my father..." His voice trailed off as they reached the car.

"Did you talk to him with it?" the girl asked hopefully.

Edgeworth laughed a little and shook his head. "We terrified ourselves before we even got it out of the box. I never bothered to try using it after that, but I've kept it all this time-" He broke off abruptly. Curious, the cat tapped into her powers again to see what he was thinking. She was saddened to find out that he had kept the board in the hope that the two of them would use it together someday, when she wasn't so scared of it anymore. But the two of them had grown apart, and he kept it now only as a memento of those times when they had played togther as children. "Here, you take the cat; I have to drive."

Startled, the cat clung to him as he tried to pass her off to the girl.

"Here, let me take him," the man called Nick offered, and as soon as the cat relaxed her claws he scooped her up. Edgeworth appeared surprised that the cat had allowed this, but seeing as how his companion was still under the impression the cat was the angel, she didn't think she was in any immediate danger.

The cat (and the man carrying her) ended up in the front passenger seat of the car. She settled down in his lap and closed her mind to his thoughts. She didn't really want to know what he was thinking at that moment, especially if any of it concerened _her_.

A strained awkward silence filled the car, but none of the human passengers dared to break it.

After a long, tense trip, the car pulled to a halt in front of an apartment building and the passengers exited the car. The cat felt a sudden flare of astral power and turned to look. She saw that the angel had somehow managed to turn himself into a mangy gray kitten. Sighing inwardly, she wriggled free of Nick's arms and trotted over to the kitten, who she then picked up by the scruff of his neck, in much the way a mother cat would. She carried him this way until they reached Edgeworth's apartment.

The angel couldn't hold his transformation and reverted back to his astral form. The devil thought this was just as well, since one of them would have to move the Ouija board's pointer and she wasn't quite ready to abandon her cat form yet.

The three humans spread the Ouija board out on the floor and gathered around it, each placing a hand on the pointer. At first they seemed to be at a loss as for what to do, but after a few moments the girl plucked up her courage and asked loudly, "Is anyone there?"

The angel reached out, careful not to touch any of their hands and moved the pointer to _Yes_.

"W-what's your name?" the girl continued nervously.

_I can't tell you that_.

"Why not?"

_A curse will fall on me._

"Then... can I guess and you tell me if I'm right? Would that be allowed?"

A pause, then _Yes_.

The girl hesitated, so Edgeworth took over. "Are you Dick Gumshoe?"

He was surprised to see the pointer fall on _Yes_ because he had been expecting a different answer.

"Why didn't you come when Maya tried to summon you before?"

_My soul does not exist in that form anymore_.

He hesitated briefly before asking, "Is there anyone else with you?"

_Yes_.

"Can you tell me that person's name?"

The angel started to direct the pointer to No but suddenly the devil was beside him, pushing his hand away. She grabbed hold of the pointer and quickly jerked it to the letters F, V, K.

The man called Nick started to say something but never got a chance to finish as the board suddenly burst into flames and a voice - one that even the humans could hear - roared, "BELTHIER! What are you doing here playing around with a Ouija board? Hurry and complete your final task and become a being of pure darkness!"

A red-winged devil had appeared in the room, and from the way everyone was now looking at _her_, the female devil guessed that the newcomer had used his powers to force-manifest her as well.

"What are you doing here, Stravnos?" she snapped. "This isn't your sector and besides _that_, I thought you were already well on your way to becoming a full devil. Why are your wings red again?"

"Well," Stravnos drawled, leering. "I did something not even full devils are allowed to do." His face lit up with an evil grin. "I killed two humans."

And, suddenly, memories of her death came flooding back to her.

"Devils have always lured humans to their deaths, but we've never been allowed to kill them outright... I got away with it by pretending I didn't know the rules, but they made me start my trials over again. But this was something I had to do. I wanted to kill you with my own hands." Het let out a delighted cackle when he saw the tormented expression on her face. "That's right, _his_ death is totally on you... the note clearly stated that you were to come alone... and to complete my revenge, I dragged your soul down to Hell, even though that last act of yours could have redeemed you and earned you a place in the Host of Heaven."

Yes, she remembered now. The man who was now an angel had tried to protect her and been fatally wounded for his efforts. He'd told her to run, to save herself... But she had stayed by his side, held him close for a few precious moments, and died with him.

Stravnos was still rambling on. "... oh, yes. Matt Engarde has had his revenge!" His eyes went wide as he realized what he'd just done. A malevolent aura filled the room as the curse began to take hold.

The devil found herself surrounded by blinding white light and realized that the angel was protecting her once again. And, as she done at the time of her death, she made her way to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body close to his and burying her face against his shoulder.

Once the light cleared, she saw that her wings had somehow turned pure black, but they were the feathered wings of an angel...

The three humans were staring, shocked, at the place where Stravnos had disappeared. The Oujia board, somehow whole again, lay between them. The untrained angel knelt down and, placing her hand on the pointer, slowly spelled out a message.

_We're alright. We're together. And when your times come, we will be here to guide you._

~end~

**A/N: Reviews are love.**


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